Physical Development

development through the life stages

P1 describe physical, intellectual, social and emotional development for each of the life stages of an individual

phyiscal development

Physical development starts from the moment fertilisation happens and physical development continues to progress and challenge us into adolescents. In infancy those are the years our body concentrates on developing control over the body, particularly the muscles and physical coordination. It’s important for the brain and body coordination to develop so they can encourage specific activities.  These activities would include; crawling, grasping, walking and writing.

Physical development splits into two sections. One is called gross motor skills and the other is called fine motor skills. A motor skill is a simple action that involves our bodies to use our muscles.

 When we are concentrating on developing muscle and being able to make large movements such as; crawling, walking, standing and running. This is when we would consider gross motor skills.  Large muscles in are bodies are; arms, shoulder, legs, back and neck. We move we constantly and deliberately increase our gross motor development.  Gross motor also consists of balance and stability within the body. This allows us to make movements such as; jumping, kicking, skipping, throwing and galloping.  Our body learns to control the neck before tour shoulders, but our shoulders before our back.

When we consider developing our fine motor skills, we look at developing our smaller muscles within our bodies, our smaller muscles take longer to develop than are larger muscles. Fine motor skills are thee smaller actions such as picking up something with our finger and thumb or when we wiggle our toes in the sand. But are fine motor skills do not just consist of our fingers and toes but our mouth, lips and tongue so we are able to feel and taste objects. Development will start at our heads and then move its way down the body. A baby will be able to control their mouth, lips, face and tongue before the rest of the body, but the rest will come in time.

intelluctal development

Intellectual development is made up of the brain and the individuals mind. Through the expansion of intellectual growth, we mainly focus on two departments. These departments are called cognitive development and language development. Together these departments allow individuals to reason for themselves in relation to their own surrounding. Intellectual development is repeatedly developing through reading, writing, drawing and using their memory.

Cognitive growth is the appearance to be able to think, process and understand an individual’s surrounding would be processed through their taste, touch, sound, small and sight. As an individual grows and cognitive development expands into more of an active imagination and problem-solving skills will allow them to plan and prepare to accomplish their long-term goals.